Severe thunderstorms packing "hurricane-force" winds left thousands of Entergy Arkansas Inc. customers without power on Saturday, along with washed-out roads and downed trees that hampered some relief efforts.
Entergy reported a peak outage of 6,500 customers as of 7 a.m. Saturday, which had been reduced to 3,331 customers as of 10 a.m., said Jim Garland, Entergy's manager of region customer service.
Garland said he expected crews would have the outages below 3,000 by noon Saturday, and crews would work until 10 p.m. Saturday, while local servicemen would work until midnight Saturday.
"Most of the damage in this line of storms was caused by high winds. One of our servicemen described it as 'hurricane-force' winds," he said.
"We currently have six contractor crews supporting our local construction crews. We are expecting six more contractor crews this afternoon," Garland said Saturday morning.
"We expect most of the outages to be restored by 10 p.m. (Saturday). However, there will be isolated cases where outages will extend into Sunday," he said.
The largest outages Saturday morning were in the Park Avenue and Bower Street areas. In south Hot Springs, problems were reported along Higdon Ferry to Central Avenue. Crews were also working a large outage in the south Carpenter Dam Road area.
"We will be adding a few additional damage assessment scouts from the Little Rock area this afternoon to assist in damage assessment," he said. "We appreciate the public's patience during the repair efforts."
The Garland County Sheriff's Department issued an email alert Saturday afternoon saying it and the Garland County Road Department had been out most of the night dealing with the results of the storm.
"Water will need to recede before major repairs can commence and Entergy will have to remove power lines in some areas before downed trees can be removed. We are currently assessing road problems throughout the county and would like for you to report any safety issues they see so these can be addressed. We would like to thank you for your patience as we continue to work on these problem areas," the alert said.
Garland County received various levels of storm-related damage Friday night and early Saturday morning, said Robert King, communications/warning officer for Garland County Emergency Management.
Assessments were still underway Saturday, and while some of the event locations had been cleared, King said, "we do have some locations that will require additional time to resolve."
Road flooding was reported at Highway 7 and Surrey Road, Park Avenue and Fox Pass, Shore Acres, Thornton Ferry, and several other locations.
The roadbed was reported washed out around one end of the bridge on Peaceful Hills Road, just off the 7500 block of Airport Road, King said.
Road culverts were washed away on Boulder Road and Ragweed Valley Road, leaving large gaps and making them impassable until repaired, he said.
"Repairs may be as late as Monday or Tuesday in beginning, due to the continued high and rapidly flowing water at those locations," King said.
Downed trees or power lines were reported in numerous locations, including Amity Road, Turkey Trot Road and Raithwood Road, Compadre Estates and Echo Point, according to King.
At least one tree was reported to have fallen on a house on Chinaberry Circle, but no injuries were reported and extent of damages were unknown, he said.
Because of the releases being made from Remmel Dam to maintain lake levels, Entergy issued a high-flow notification for areas below the dam as of Saturday morning.
As the rain moved out of the area and the inflow into lakes Hamilton and Catherine from local streams began reducing, Entergy began closing gates at both Remmel and Carpenter dams Saturday afternoon.
Lake Hamilton was just under its normal summertime pool level, and Entergy said in an email it was working to keep it right around 399.7 feet above mean sea level.
Lake Catherine peaked at 304.88 feet msl shortly before noon, and was steadily dropping, Entergy said. With spillway gate closures, the flow from Remmel was about 38,400 cfs.
"We have had reports of a loose boat on Lake Hamilton and at least one, and possibly two, loose docks on Lake Catherine," the email said.
"We advise boaters, lakefront property owners and downstream river users to use caution as this event has most likely caused a substantial amount of debris on the lakes."
Entergy said Saturday morning that, in the past 24 hours, the Hot Springs/Garland County area had received around 5-6 inches of rainfall.
The discharge from Remmel Dam on Saturday morning was about 49,000 cubic feet of water per second, and Entergy had anticipated it would increase to about 55,000 cfs.
Releases from Blakely Mountain Dam, which is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, were canceled until the flow release from Remmel dropped below 13,000 cfs.
Local on 05/01/2016